A normal user's look into the world of 3D Stereo Technologies

There are a few things that are very important and that you must know if you are interested in obtaining and using Nvidia’s GeForce 3D Vision – these are the system requirements you should be able to meet. For instance you should know that the 3D Stereo drivers for GeForce 3D Vision are only available for Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows 7 (yes they already support it and work as good as they work in Vista). So if you are still using Windows XP for instance you should start thinking of upgrading and the better solution is to go directly for Windows 7 (there is already a public Release Candidate available) and later this year to obtain a full copy of the final Windows 7 operating system. But there are some other important system requirements that you should meet in order not to use the 3D vision, but also to get the maximum enjoyment out of it…

Of course the faster the video card – the better, because it will be able to provide higher framerate with more details and even AA and AF turned on so that you’ll be able to fully enjoy each game with noth only a depth perception, but also the maximum possible quality of the graphics. Your PC also has to be quite powerful with at least a fast Intel or AMD dual-core processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM, the faster the better…

As for the displays, I’ve already mentioned that the GeForce 3D Vision LC-shutter glasses provide the best experience with the 120 Hz Samsung 2233RZ or ViewSonic VX2265wm FuHzion LCD monitors, but also any CRT display that can provide at least 100 Hz with a good resolution should provide good results. Now if you are going to use an old CRT monitor you have lying around you better check that it not only provides high enough resolution at 100 Hz refresh rate, but also check the maximum brightness it can provide. You should know that the LC-shutter glasses block some of the light when you are wearing them and playing in 3D Stereo mode and thus the image on the screen looks a bit darker that without the glasses. By default CRT displays provide lower maximum brightness than a typical LCD and after they have been used for quite some time all monitors loose some of their brightness and become dimmer. And if your CRT is quite old (and it probably is) it might not be able to provide high enough brightness level for comfortable and detailed picture when you put on and activate the 3D stereo glasses.

Apart form the two 120 Hz LCD displays and old CRT models you can also use GeForce 3D Vision in conjunction with the following Mitsubishi 1080p DLP Home Theater TV sets: WD-57833, WD-60735, WD-60737, WD-60C8, WD-60C9, WD-65735, WD-65736, WD-65737, WD-65C8, WD-65C9, WD-65833, WD-65835, WD-65837, WD-73735, WD-73736, WD-73737, WD-73833, WD-73835, WD-73837, WD-73C8, WD-73C9, WD-82737, WD-82837, L65-A90. The other supported and compatible hardware is a DepthQ HD 3D Projector by LightSpeed Design, but there are more compatible products that will be coming out later this year. For instance there is information that other bigger LCD monitor manufacturers are already preparing 120 Hz products that will be available as an alternative to Samsung 2233RZ and ViewSonic VX2265wm FuHzion.

One final not that you should be aware of is that the LCD TV sets that you see being marketed as 100 Hz, 200 Hz or even the new top products in the form of 600 Hz Plasma TVs (PDP) are not compatible with GeForce 3D Vision. The reason for that incompatibility is that these TV sets use some sort of internal algorithms to reach higher framerates from a video content with much lower framerate, but you cannot set such high refresh rate when using the TV set as a computer monitor. So don’t get your hopes too high in getting such a high refresh rate display with much bigger screen size than the currently available 22-inch monitors.